Category Archives: RoozenGaarde

Early and Excited!

~Daffodowndilly” by A.A. Milne.
She wore her yellow sun-bonnet,
She wore her greenest gown;
She turned to the south wind
And curtsied up and down.
She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbour:
“Winter is dead.”
I’m just a little early to welcome Spring but it is one of my favorite seasons. The other favorite is Autumn. I’m hoping to find some daffodils while we are on a little overnight or two in our neighboring state. These daffodil photos are from March of 2016. We sisters got together for a couple days of adventuring around La Conner for a nice meal and the Mount Vernon (Skagit Valley) area to enjoy the fields of daffodils. This area would soon (April) be filled with tulips!

I keep harping on my sisters that it is time for another sister weekend. Maybe in Dallas or Arizona??

This week is to be one full week of celebrating the oldest and one of the youngest in our family. Addy will turn 7 this week! All our kids will be arriving the end of the week for a extended weekend of fun. Greg and I are enjoying the first couple of days in Coeur d Alene, Idaho. A lovely destination where we can enjoy nice walks along the lake and also enjoy a variety of restaurants for some good food.

I will be hit and miss online for the next few days.

Are you excited for Spring?

Hijole it’s May Hodgepodge!

These were our rhoddy bushes at our last home in Kenmore, Washington.

Jo From This Side of the Pond has a new bouquet of questions for us to answer this first Hodgepodge of May. Click over to join in the fun. Thank you Jo!

1. What’s something you ‘may’ do this month? 

Gut our master shower and start work on the remodeling of it. That won’t be me alone but the royal we who do this. Mostly he’ll do it and I’ll be his gofer.

2. “All things seem possible in May”~Edwin Way Teale. Do you agree? Elaborate. If not May, then in which month if any would you say all things seem possible? 

I’m more of a get-er-done in October kind of person. For me the merry month of May yields more things to leisurely enjoy.

3. April showers bring May flowers…is this true where you live?

Absolutely true here. We are still in daffodil and tulip mode and soon many different plants will flower.

What’s your favorite color of the rainbow?

I will go with Violet.

Your favorite May bloom?

Rhododendron

Do you enjoy visiting gardens?

Yes! I’ve been fortunate to visit several beautiful gardens like Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island, The gardens at Biltmore in Asheville, The Japanese Gardens in Seattle,  Roozengaarde Tulip Garden in Mt. Vernon Washington State, Descanso Gardens in Flintridge, California, Airlie Gardens in Wilmington N.C. , Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden, Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, Hidcote Gardens (Cotswolds), Kiftsgate Court Gardens (Cotswolds) to name a few…

What’s a ‘famous’ garden you’d like to visit? 

Beatrix Potter’s Garden at Hilltop

4. Are you a fan of the Star Wars series of films? If so how many have you seen? (I think there are 12) 

I enjoyed watching the first series in the theater, the first 4. We went to church with George Lucas’s sister when we lived in Huntington Beach. Didn’t really keep up with the last 7 or 8 of them.

Are you a fan of the sci-fi genre in general, in either books or movies? What’s your favorite sci-fi book or movie? 

More a fan of Fantasy. Hubby really enjoys Sci-fi. His favorite author is Isaac Asimov and the favorite series is The Foundation Trilogy.

5. Cinco de Mayo lands on Friday of this week…do you enjoy Mexican food? How often?

We grew up in what I call ‘Northern Mexico’ aka Southern California so we learned to enjoy Mexican food early. I can eat Mexican food several times a week but on average I’d say twice a week.

Do you eat out or make your own?

Both. This week we’ll be eating Mexican food out on Thursday and on Cinco de Mayo!

Your favorite thing to order in a Mexican restaurant?

Depending on the restaurant I enjoy Chile Colorado in a burrito or a chalupa. I also enjoy Enchiladas Suissa.

Have you ever been to Mexico? 

Yes and not to a resort. We went to Tecate to pick up floor tiles for our cousin’s house. Ticate is well East of Tijuana. We have tales to tell about that trip. After we got the tiles in the van the trip back to the Border near Tijuana was dicey. The heavy load necessitated more air in the tires and we called out to the Lord to find somewhere for that air! We made it back on the U.S. side and parked the van there. Then we crossed the Border again taking a taxi to Tijuana for some shopping. After we were done shopping we thought we could walk back to the Border, because we were so cheap. A Tijuana Police car pulled up and told us it was too far to walk to the ‘Border’ and we were escorted back to the U.S. Border by two Tijuana policemen in their police car… My cousin sat between the two policemen in the front seat and Me, Jeanie and Greg were in the back seat. We were a little nervous until we saw the Border crossing. Come over for dinner sometime and we’ll tell you the rest of the story…

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Speaking of gardens…

The gardens at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville N.C. in May of 2014 with our daughter Katie.

Butchart Gardens with our daughter, Katie.

Japanese Gardens in Seattle.

Descanso Gardens in 1988 and 2010, Katie and her cousins.

Roozengaarde in Mount Vernon, Washington State.

Hidcote Gardens in the Cotswolds 2014.

 

So thankful for all the beauty that God created for us to enjoy.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope to visit Hodgepodgers soon.

Tiptoeing Hodgepodge

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Jo From This Side of the Pond is back this week a new set of Wednesday Hodgepodge questions!

1. What puts a spring in your step these days? 

Getting small and large tasks accomplished.

2. April 2nd was National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day. Did you celebrate? Do you like PB and J? If so how do you like yours? What’s your favorite kind of jelly?

No peanut butter celebrations here in the past week. Yum and yes to PB and J. Toast with peanut butter and honey is a favorite. When enjoying PB with jam give me raspberry or strawberry please.

3. What’s a memory you associate with spring flowers?

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The Skagit Valley Tulip festival in Washington State and visiting Roozengaarde farm and garden in Mt. Vernon, Washington.  Skagit is the county where you find the towns that grow tulips in abundance. We’ve enjoyed tulip farms and tulips in Mt. Vernon and La Conner.

4. Three things on your spring bucket list? Do you have a spring bucket list? If not pretend you do. 

  1. Drop some pounds.
  2. Travel over to the ‘coast’.
  3. Start mowing the lawn again.

5. One place you will travel this spring? (It might be Europe or it might be the grocery store)

Waiting on our passports which needed renewing so no out of country trips this Spring. We will for sure travel south to Spokane for shopping at the big box stores. Hopefully (see #4) we will get a trip to the other side of the Cascades on the books.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Speaking of the tulip festival…

You don’t have to go all the way to Amsterdam to enjoy tulips galore.

Roozengaarde Tulip Farm

On the letter R and let’s go back to remember better days when we could schlep about the muddy tulip fields during the annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. The Tulip festival of 2020 had to be cancelled and the only way to see the Roozengaarde Garden is by a virtual tour.

Our very first visit to the tulip fields in Mount Vernon was a brief one in 1989.

This was in the late 90’s when my folks visited us in April and Katie was at least 10 years older. These photos were taken in the Roozengaarde Farm Garden.

We celebrated my mom’s birthday while they were here so we know they were here before and after April 8th.

The first time I met some of the Mennonite Girls Can Cook face to face was during the tulip festival in 2010.

That was the beginning of a incredible adventure.

In 2014 Katie and I visited the Roozengaarde again before she moved back to Jacksonville, North Carolina.

In 2015 as many of the Mennonite Girls who could, traveled down into the USA to meet me at Roozengaarde.

In 2018 we had a very muddy windy schlep through the fields with my sister, daughter and DIL.

We don’t live on the “Coast” anymore so a quick trip up to the tulip fields and to Roozengaarde Gardens is not easy anymore. I have lots of good memories and photos to remember.

 

Skagit Valley Barns

These photos were all taken on our way to Roozengaarde Garden on May 2nd to see the tulips.

I’m linking up to The Barn Collective with Tom the Backroads Traveler.

Dear pressure washed the deck and part of the drive and put up our patio covers on Friday. Now we are ready to bring the patio furniture down from the loft in the garage. That will happen once we have a dry spell again. We continue our quest to go through boxes of records to sort and shred. Our major Spring project is to let go of a lot of stuff! Our kids will reap the benefit of not having to do it for us! If you are a mother and are visiting here I hope you have a very grateful and peaceful Mother’s Day!

This is a side by side of our daughter-in-law when she was a baby and our granddaughter a couple weeks ago. Addy’s mommy will be celebrating her first Mother’s Day tomorrow. Happy Mother’s Day Jamie! You are a great mommy for little Addy!

Tulip Mosaics

Tulips last a short time every year and I’m always keen to see them in the muddy or dry conditions on the tulip farms north of us in Skagit County. Dear and I traveled north on Tuesday morning May 2nd. The tulip festival usually runs the month of April but because of the weather and a late bloom this year they extended the festival into the first week of May.

One of our favorite stops is at Roozengaarde in Mount Vernon. They always have a beautiful display.

The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival is the largest festival in Northwest Washington State. Each year more than 1 million visitors come to experience over 300 acres of brightly colored tulips.

Who is behind the tulips?  Roozengaarde was established in 1985 by the Roozen family and Washington Bulb Company, Inc. The Roozen family business of growing Tulips, Daffodils and Irises is the largest in the world, covering Skagit Valley with more than 1200 acres of field blooms and 15 acres of greenhouses.  William Roozen emigrated from Holland in 1947 with years of experience in the bulb industry. He had a good back, strong hands, and a heart pulsing with dreams. Roozen started a bulb farm on five acres of land, holding meetings in a garage and toiling long hours beside a few hired hands. He saved money by buying used tractors and farm equipment.

The Roozen family’s hard work ethic spans at least six generations. The family first began raising tulips in Holland in the mid-1700’s.  In the Skagit Valley, Roozen (which means “roses” in Dutch) worked for other farmers before setting off on his own in 1950. Five years later, he purchased the Washington Bulb Co., founded by two of the area’s first bulb farmers, Joe Berger and Cornelius Roozekrans. The Washington Bulb Co. now farms about 2,000 acres of land.  In 1985, William Roozen handed the business down to his five sons and a daughter, Bernadette Roozen Miller, who passed away in 1996.  William Roozen passed away on July 13, 2002 and, with 35 grandchildren, was confident the family company will keep growing.

We had another garden adventure in May that I will share this week. Our daughter Katie took this selfie of us on that adventure.

Woke up this Monday morning to sunshine! What a nice sight. This week is the last quiet week at this old house before we start traveling east, south and further east.

I’m linking up to Mosaic Monday with Maggie at Normandy Life.

Barns in Tulip World

When we travel to Skagit Valley to see the tulip fields we get the added bonus of seeing some barns along the way.

I spy myself taking this photo in our side view mirror!

The purpose of our trip to Skagit Valley was to visit the gardens at Roozengaarde and the bonus were the views along the country roads.

A horse beyond the tulips out of focus but the tulips were the focus of this trip.

I’ll leave you with this masterfully taken selfie of me and Dear. I have a lot of work to do on my selfies, yes?

Our Saturday is a mix of tweaking, painting, sorting, recycling, and trashing. I’ll have a few hours break at noon for soccer south of downtown Seattle. What’s on your agenda?

Linking up with Tom the Backroads Traveler for The Barn Collective.

Tulips in Borders

We were happy that we had a nice window of sunshine on May 2nd to enjoy this years tulip display even though it was in it’s very last days. The tulip festival usually runs the month of April. This year there was a late start to the blooms because of our winter weather so they extended the festival through the first week of May. So much beauty in living color.

We had a crazy weather day yesterday. The day started with beautiful sunshine and the temps climbed up to 78 and then just before 4pm the skies darkened and we had a thunderstorm event across our region with lots of lightning. One of the lightning strikes was right over our home and it was so loud! The rains came down in buckets and some trees and power lines came down, too. We have power but a good amount of folks lost power. The news called the event “the biggest severe weather day in decades”. Things are a lot milder today. Spring is unpredictable.

Our weekend looks to be quiet again which is a good thing because the end of the month will be busy with travel for both Dear and me. Got this sweet collage texted to us from our daughter-in-law with Miss Addy enjoying the sunshine on their porch. These photos were taken on May 4th.

Oh how we love this little girl. What a blessing she is from God to our whole family. Have a good Cinco de Mayo and first weekend in May everyone!

Zoom In to Tulips…

So many beautiful varieties of tulips and I’ve only shown you some of them. More coming soon.

Wednesday we managed to mow half the lawn and then finished up this morning. We had another sunny day today up until about 3:45  and now we are having a few thunderstorms roll through. Dear and I picked up Katie today and headed to the Seattle Japanese Gardens where Katie enjoyed a Japanese Tea Ceremony course for one of her college classes. She wore a tank top today! Our warmest day to date this year.

A Rare Sunny Morning…

My new header photo was taken at the Roozengaarde Gardens in Mt. Vernon in the state of Washington. When we heard we might have a few hours of sunshine on Tuesday, Dear and I zoomed up north about an hour from our home to see the very end of the tulip festival offerings. I’m first sharing the photos I took out in the few remaining fields of tulips.

 

The well planned garden and the borders of tulips in alphabetical order to help you know what you might want to order were still lovely to  enjoy. I’ll be sharing photos from those areas next.

We had a warming up today which is much appreciated. We even were able to throw open a few windows to enjoy the fresh air.